Friday, September 26, 2014

ESA Rosetta Team select Landing Date for Philae

The ESA Rosetta team says it will attempt to land the first spacecraft on a comet on Nov. 12.

It says the maneuver will take about seven hours starting from the moment its unmanned probe Rosetta releases the 100-kilogram lander at 0835 GMT (0335 EST).

Because of the 28 minutes it takes the signal to travel back to Earth, confirmation of a successful landing won't arrive until about shortly after 1600 GMT (1100 EST).

ESA said in a statement Friday that it has a backup plan in case of a problem with the preferred landing site.

Scientists hope the decade-long mission to examine comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko will help them learn more about the origins and evolution of objects in the universe.

Site J was chosen unanimously over four other candidate sites as the primary landing site because the majority of terrain within a square kilometre area has slopes of less than 30º relative to the local vertical and because there are relatively few large boulders.